


'Cause We Know We're Falling From Grace

by yuffiehighwind



Series: Miscellaneous HTLJ [1]
Category: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/F, F/M, Gen, Humorous Ending, M/M, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-01-01
Updated: 2000-01-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 06:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4908649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuffiehighwind/pseuds/yuffiehighwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Twilight is upon them, and Discord was having such a nice dream, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'Cause We Know We're Falling From Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place shortly before S5E22 of _Xena,_ "Motherhood." First composed in 2000, revised in 2009, edited and re-posted in 2015. Title is a lyric from "Millennium" by Robbie Williams. References [the Judgement of Paris](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Paris).

The bedroom was dark and dry. Cobwebs hung in abandoned corners, while dust blew across the stone floor in the breeze from an open window. A cloud inched by until the moon peeked out to cast an ethereal light into the room.

A few furnishings emerged from the darkness in this beam, most of them hideous inflictors of pain and suffering - cruel contraptions of one who relishes in violence. A single bed, ordinary aside from the ominous symbols of death carved into its headboard, stood in silence against the wall opposite the window.

Silvery fingers of moonlight reached out and gently caressed the sleeping form of a young woman. The light slowly traversed across the foot of the bed and along midnight-black sheets until it reached her mask-like face, hardened in anger at some phantasmal enemy. Wisps of dark hair escaped their fellows on her head, falling onto the girl’s cheek.

The moon’s rays wavered a little.

The girl’s eyes shot open. Two red orbs glowed with fury.

"What do you think you’re _doing_ , Artemis?"

Her voice was clear and curt, razor-sharp, utterly feminine and absolutely vicious, and thoroughly pissed off.

The moon’s rays swiftly backed away. All light retreated out the window as though a vacuum stole it. The room was unnaturally dark again in an instant, though not for long.

A silver sparkle of light shimmered into the shape of a human body beside the bed. The sleeper, no longer dozing, rolled over to glare at her visitor.

The woman standing before her was tall, tan, and athletic. She was clad in a skimpy set of silver armor - a simple shimmery skirt that ran down to mid-thigh, knee-high boots with swirling floral designs on them, a sports-bra-like top, and armbands with Amazonian insignia. One wristband bore the female symbol - a cross with a circle on top. The woman’s hair was long and flame-red, held back by a thin metal headband. On her back was a quill of arrows and at her side she held a beautiful silver bow, designed by Hephaestus and given to her by Zeus when she was just a baby.

Artemis looked on at her peeved, half-asleep sister with a combination of annoyance and clemency.

"I was just checking on you, Eris. Making my usual rounds."

Artemis, Goddess of the Moon, often used the moonlight, which was always at her disposal, to spy on her siblings. The younger ones tended to forget the extent of her scrying power, and often dismissed the moon as being just another light in the sky.

"Doesn’t anybody _knock_ anymore?!"

Eris, or Discord as she was more commonly called, tossed off the sheets and turned to leave her bed—perhaps to pummel her _brilliant_ lunar sister once and for all.

She was completely naked.

Artemis had seen Discord nude many times before, but could not help but let her eyes peruse the petite goddess’ milky skin and lithe body. She grinned slightly.

Discord alighted to the floor and stood in front of the Amazon goddess. She twirled around, perceiving full well that her sister’s eyes appreciatively roamed every inch. She gave Artemis a twisted smile. The virgin goddess averted her gaze and gently coughed, suddenly uncomfortable.

"Well, uh," she stammered. "I…I’m sorry to have awakened you."

Forgetting her original intent of sneaking into Discord’s chamber, the embarrassed Artemis prepared to exit.

"You’re not sorry," Discord gibed. "You just wanted to catch me in the buff."

Artemis remembered the message Athena had asked her to deliver and quickly changed the subject.

"Athena wished for me to deliver you a message. A meeting will be held in the Halls of Olympus tomorrow morning."

Discord was clearly not paying attention. She let her hands stray to a verboten area of her unclad torso. She then brought the hands up to her face to lick them, all the while leering at Artemis.

Artemis turned around and found herself gaping at the middle of a stretching rack; flecks of dried blood remained on it from previous usage.

The huntress remembered why she’d never visited Discord’s quarters before.

"Like my toys?" Discord asked in a breathy voice. She slinked over next to the Amazon and wrapped an arm around her waist. "If you weren’t always so damn _prudent_ , we could’ve played with these toys." She licked her lips. Artemis removed the arm and widened the distance between the two of them.

"You have heard about what happened yesterday, correct?"

Discord, in a frisky mood, leaped onto the bed and began jumping up and down on it.

"No." _Bounce_ "What" _Bounce_ "happened?" _Bounce_

Artemis was mildly surprised.

"You haven’t talked to Ares at all these past three days?"

_Ares…That fucking asshole…Betrayed us all…In love with Xena…Liar…Never spent any time with me… Did I want him to?…He didn’t care…Mourned for years…Xena is dead…Let her rest, brother…_

Fleeting thoughts. They were gone in an instant.

Discord shook her head and continued jumping. On her last jump she stayed suspended in air. Flying usually drained a lot of energy, but boy was it fun! Besides, she could always go back to sleep.

"I haven’t talked to Ares very much in…say…twenty-five years?”

Artemis raised an eyebrow, doubting this.

“That prick!" Discord hissed. "Wasting all his time and energy on that Roman brat, Livia." She rolled around in the air, relishing every second of the lack of gravity. It was like swimming in pudding without the mess.

"It’s just that, Eris. It’s Livia," Artemis said, watching her sister with curiosity. Discord shut her eyes, letting herself softly levitate. She tried to permit all of her angst about her past with Ares to deliquesce and slide off her toes.

"Eris?"

Discord was apparently lost in her own little world.

_"Eris!"_

No response. The floating goddess began to hum a song she’d recently heard at one of Dionysus’ parties.

Artemis, irked by her sister’s immaturity, snapped her fingers, and Discord fell with a noisy thud onto the bed.

"FUCK!"

Discord crawled out from a tangle of silk sheets and raven feathers. Her pillows, what few she had, were ruined.

"ARTIE!" she squalled. "What the fuck?"

"Now that I have your attention, I will tell you the news myself."

Discord was confused. Wasn’t she dreaming?

"What fucking _news?_ " Angrily enveloping herself in sheets and feathers, Discord bellowed, "Can’t it wait until MORNING?"

"No. It cannot. It is urgent. It is the reason for Athena’s meeting tomorrow. It…"

"SPIT it OUT, Artemis! Fucking Amazons…"

"You remember the circumstances surrounding the death of Xena twenty-five years ago, correct?"

Discord glowered from inside her cocoon, but she nodded. She remembered. She got smashed that night at the celebration party. So did everyone else, except for the few gods who actually _missed_ Xena and Gabrielle.

_Too bad Ares missed my table dance._

"Heph, ‘Thena and Hades drove her, her spawn, and her girlfriend off a cliff," she recalled aloud. "So what?"

She felt like levitating again. It was relaxing. If only she could convince Artemis how intriguing an experience it would be to eat someone out while floating in the air.

"And you are aware that Ares has been training a Roman princess named Livia to be his next ‘Warrior Queen’, correct?" Artemis continued.

Discord growled, "Yes! He talks about her every fucking second of every fucking day! WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?"

Artemis took in a deep, drawn-out breath. "Xena is not dead."

Discord said nothing, rage and disbelief stewing inside her. This wasn’t, couldn’t be, fair.

"And Livia…is really her daughter Eve."

Discord felt like throwing up. She would have vomited right then if she were mortal. But gods never vomited, unless they were cursed with sickness or if they died, which was impossible. _Or when they were pregnant._

She would willingly die before going through the last one again.

"Xena is alive," Artemis repeated, "and has succeeded in getting her daughter back, so to speak. Up until a few days ago, Eve has not known her true purpose. She believed she was this… _warlord_ , Livia. Now, for reasons unknown to us so far, Eve has remembered who she is." She paused. "This will surely cause a problem for us. Who knows what she might try."

Artemis went on to explain what she’d thus far learned from various sources about Xena’s return. Discord’s thoughts were elsewhere.

_Why couldn’t he have killed them when he had the chance?_

An immense swell of anger surged through her body.

_Why did he let Xena and her brat live?_

She didn’t show it, though.

_Was it because of his "undying" love for her?_

Discord tried to bury herself deep within the sheets.

_Family comes first, you dick!_

Artemis was still talking when Discord’s mind snapped back to the present.

"…And that is what we know so far. The part Ares related may be true, or it may not." She shrugged. "You know him best."

_I sure do, don’t I?_

The Amazon goddess continued, "Come to the meeting tomorrow. Athena has a plan she is sure will take care of the Eve problem once and for all."

Discord emerged from her sheets to look up at the moon goddess.

"We kill her," she responded with a shrug. "Easy."

" _Not_ easy," Artemis said. "Xena will protect her daughter at any cost. And Xena is tough to kill. Remember last time?"

Discord did remember "last time." Everyone rejoiced at the presumed death of Xena and her kid, the Bringer of the Twilight, except for Ares. Ares’ devastation at the loss of his love almost ruined the party for everyone.

"You fools!" Discord exclaimed vehemently. "We can just drop a mountain on her and be done with this shit!" She curled the sheets around her, hiding herself once again.

"Mountain dropping was prohibited five thousand years ago, Eris."

A muffled grunt came from the lump on the bed that was Discord.

"What was that?" Artemis inquired.

A hand emerged from the sheets, a single finger stuck up from a clenched fist. It was the middle one. Artemis rolled her eyes.

"Just come to the meeting tomorrow, okay?"

There was no reply but another muffled grunt.

With that, Artemis’ body shimmered and broke down into silver, glowing particles. The light quickly faded and Discord’s bedroom was dark again.

_We’re screwed._

* * *

When dawn came, the dark retreated through the single oval window and was replaced by the painfully bright daylight. Discord writhed and moaned in her bed, the climax of an especially enjoyable dream coming to a satisfying conclusion. Half asleep, Discord reached over and pulled the sheets taut around her tiny frame. Smiling, she opened her mouth to let out a long gratified sigh.

The goddess arose and stretched her arms out above her head, and her long black, somewhat disarrayed tresses fell into and over her face, brushing against her naked breasts.

Yawning, she cast the sheets aside and sat on the edge of the bed. She tentatively extended a foot down to the cold stone floor, not wanting to experience the chill of icy granite beneath her feet this early in the morning. It was an unpleasant sensation, even for a god. In a few minutes, Apollo’s blazing chariot would speed by, warming up the stone anyway. She’d lazily wait.

It was never necessary for gods to sleep. But some gods enjoyed the benefits of sleeping just the same. Especially the _dreams._

_I’ll have to thank Morpheus._

Discord then remembered _why_ Morpheus had allotted her all those _amazing_ sex dreams in the first place.

Morpheus was a _genius -_ an artist, if you will, at simulating sex in the dreams he placed in people’s heads - but she had discovered that the Dream God was unexpectedly inadequate when it came to the real thing.

Discord pondered her latest mental conquest. It had been Ares, again. She sighed forlornly.

The man Morpheus put in her dreams _looked_ like Ares, _sounded_ like Ares, _tasted_ like Ares, but never, ever, in _any_ of her dreams did he _fuck_ like Ares. She often yearned for how her brother had roughly handled her tiny and deceptively frail body. She missed his callous hands, and how much he hurt her when he would first enter her. Ares never tried to be gentle with any of his lovers. It just wasn’t _him._

Discord lay on her belly, her feet lightly kicking the pillows. She let her head rest on her folded arms, and she peered over the edge, gazing down at the floor. She loved the feel of the silk sheets against her naked skin. It was one of the most luscious sensations in the entire world.

But the _most_ luscious, in her opinion, _had_ to be fucking Ares. But that was a long time ago. Not too long before, though, so as to forget every stroke, every touch, every caress, every taste, every orgasm, every passionate kiss.

Ares never "made love." At least never to Discord, except once or twice, when they were young and there was still a fraction of sentiment between them.

Ares never made love, he _fucked._ He was never tender or gentle or slow. Always hard and fierce and fast.

Thinking of Ares in this way always left a disconcerting feeling in Discord’s stomach. She waved the thoughts and feelings aside.

She raised her hand and noisily snapped two fingers. She was now completely dressed in her usual attire – the Goddess of Discord didn’t go for silky dresses when it came to business. She was all tight corsets and leather skirts, high black boots and leather straps that crisscrossed her small frame. Her hair teased out and face painted with contrasting shades of light and dark.

The dark goddess briskly got to her feet and headed straight for the door. She felt like taking a stroll through Olympus that morning.

_Who knows? Might be my last._

Discord ambled out into the dimly lit hall and glanced at a nearby tapestry beside the door to her room. She could not remember the last time she had physically used the hallways of her father’s palace to travel, so neither did she recall there ever being a tapestry outside her apartment.

It was made of fine silk, just as her bed sheets were, and depicted a party scene, with gorgeous threads of many colors. She remembered the scene well, for it was one of her favorite memories. Three radiant women stood in a row, all puffed up like they were all Gaia herself. Each idly awaited the important decision to be made by the young mortal man beside them. Gathered around the foursome, gods and mortals anxiously looked on to see what would happen.

Discord knew she was not one of the woven spectators or even one of the three goddesses, but she smirked at the tapestry anyway, because her _apple_ was there, clutched tightly in the young man’s woven hand.

The story went like this when people told it:

_The actual Apple of Discord was a golden apple wrought by Hephaestus._

_He was gonna give it to Aphrodite as a present, or something._

_Anyway, this apple was the most heavenly apple one could ever find._

_It wasn’t edible or anything, but it made quite a fancy paperweight._

_It was just about time for Peleus and Thetis’ wedding._

_Everyone showed up._

_Gods, nymphs, humans, centaurs, everybody._

_Children, old people, teenagers, chefs, blah blah blah…_

_The list of guests went on and on._

_Even Ares was invited, though he’d practically trashed the last party they had._

_(He’d begged for mercy like a little toddler and his parents let him go.)_

_Ares had a sister, though, who just about everyone hated._

_She was an ugly shrew. Total bitch, most antagonistic harpy you could ever meet._

_(Just calling her a harpy is an insult to harpies.)_

_Eris was left off the invitation list for the wedding. No surprise there._

_Peleus’ and Thetis’ wedding was the most brilliant fête ever held on Olympus._

_So Eris vowed vengeance._

_She stole the golden apple from Hephaestus’ workshop and engraved it with these words:_

_"To the Fairest."_

_Then, when the festivities were at their height and everyone was hammered,_

_Even dancing on the chairs,_

_She entered unseen and rolled the apple onto the banquet table._

_Aphrodite, Athena, and their father’s wife, Hera, immediately claimed it._

_They appealed to Zeus for judgment, but the king of the gods,_

_Knowing that his choice of one would lead to endless recrimination on the part of the others,_

_Refused to judge the matter._

_He passed it on to Paris, young prince of Troy, for adjudication._

_Each of the goddesses offered bribes._

_Hera offered him limitless power;_

_Athena offered him wisdom._

_Aphrodite simply took his hand and whispered to him, and he promptly awarded her the apple._

_What she had promised him was a woman as beautiful as herself,_

_Queen Helen of Sparta._

_It was the abduction of Helen by Paris that launched the Greek invasion of Troy._

_(During the war, Hera and Athena showed marked partiality for the Greek side.)_

Discord gazed at the tapestry with a smug little grin. _She_ started the Trojan War. It wasn’t _directly_ her fault, of course. Nothing you could prove in court. But she initiated the whole mess with the apple maneuver. It was one of the few notable feats to her credit.

Discord took a left and continued down the hall. Strangely, no other decorations hung in this abandoned basement area of the palace.

_How long has that tapestry been there?_

It had been ages since she’d walked these halls; it was as silent and lifeless as a tomb. No one ever came by this wing of the palace. Ares once lived there, in an apartment near Discord’s, but that was centuries before.

She walked by a wooden door, the only one in the hall for a long distance. It was boarded shut. Discord knew whose room the door had once led to.

_Strife._

Curious to see what remained inside, the first time in twenty-eight years, Discord reached up and removed the heavy decaying boards and gently pulled on the door’s handle. It creaked open and some sawdust spilled onto the floor. Discord stepped into the room, trying to stay as quiet as possible, although there was no reason to. She looked around.

The room was quite similar to her own. There was a central bed with an elaborately carved headboard, though tables lined the walls instead of torture devices. Any items of value the room had once contained had been cleared out long ago, likely robbed by the other minor deities and demigods who lived in the palace. The room was as dusty and neglected as the corners of her own, except here a thick layer coated every surface, including the bed.

Surprisingly, on one table there still lay a single, foot-long white feather.

_Cupid’s, no doubt._

She snickered.

_He actually kept it! Love-sick little shit._

She walked over to the table and picked the feather up. Absently twirling it around between her fingers, she sung an old war song under her breath and horribly out of tune.

Discord sat down on the bed and stared at the feather. She shook her head with a slight smile and stood up. Placing the feather back on the table, she hummed another tune. A lullaby she used to sing to him when he was just a godling. The brooding goddess inwardly shook herself before the memories of a more pleasant time in her life came flooding back. The waters slipped once more into the recesses of her mind.

It was time for breakfast, anyway.

And there would be a battle that day. She could feel it.

* * *

Discord walked down the halls of her father Zeus' palace. Since he had died twenty-five years ago and Athena had taken over, things on Olympus had never been the same. Gone were the lavish banquets and annual celebrations. The family's wet blanket, Athena, had banned them. Apollo still had parties at his palaces on Helicon and Parnassus, and they had never ceased to be exciting, but each rave or occasional orgy seemed few and far between.

Of course, it wasn't just the fun and games from under Zeus' rule that Discord had missed. Although Athena strove to make things more orderly by passing lots of stupid laws, everything only seemed more chaotic than it had been when Zeus called the shots. Without their father to strike fear into their hearts whenever one of them were out of line, the younger members of the Pantheon and lesser gods, like herself, spent too much of their energy causing trouble at home rather than abroad. The family had fought with each other since the beginning of time, but at least Zeus was always at the helm, guiding everyone else to what was more important, and most of the family respected him. Oh, sure, Athena was respectable. She was just too much of a bitch for anyone to notice.

* * *

Discord entered the old palace dining hall and found, to her surprise, no one there.

 _More food for_ _**me** _ _._

Upon closer inspection of the numerous tables in the room, she also found no _food._

"FUCK!" she shouted. It echoed through the large chamber and bounced off the white marble walls.

"Fuck who?" came a voice from behind her. Discord didn’t have to turn around to know whose it was. "Fuck _me?_ Fuck the _chair?_ Hmm, now that would be an interesting sight to see." He giggled. He sounded like a hyena.

Discord turned around in time to catch her nephew's face contort into a jester's mask of delirium. _Ugh._

"What are you doing here, Deimos?" Discord asked. 

"I'm here for breakfast, of course," he replied, making a flowing wave motion with one red leather-gloved hand. "Aren't we all?" He giggled again, a quieter one than before. Discord resisted asking, but figured he'd possibly know the answer.

"Where in Tartarus is everyone?" She waved at the empty banquet table. "Where's the gods-damned food?"

Deimos shrugged and made a halfway normal expression of indifference. "I dunno. But wherever they are, it must be because of 'The Crisis.'" He made quotation marks with his fingers. 

Discord scowled. "Shit. So it wasn't a dream _."_

_Oh, no! I really came onto Artemis?_

Deimos sidled up next to her, too close for Discord's liking. 

"What kind of dream?" he asked.

"Five feet personal space," she growled. Deimos obediently leaped back a few feet. 

"Artemis told me about the Xena situation at, I dunno, three in the morning? Woke me up, too, the dyke," Discord grumbled. 

"Artemis is a dyke?" Deimos wondered aloud. "DAMN IT ALL!" He dramatically shook his fists in the air. 

Discord stomped over to a chair and sat down. "Twilight? Hah! It's just a bunch of bullshit." she said. Deimos sat down across from her. 

"That's the spirit, Discord! We can break this prophecy!"

"We?"

He nodded enthusiastically. She groaned. 

"We drop a mountain on Eve, squashing her! Easy!"

Discord smirked a little bit. "That's what I told Artemis." She snickered. "She said that practice was banned millennia ago."

Deimos was appalled. _"Banned?"_

Discord nodded.

"Well un-ban it, then. This is a special case. Bring out the big guns! Call in the cavalry! Maybe we could persuade the Valkyries to join our cause. All those gorgeous warriors on those flying horses of theirs, bursting into a gallop, their massive godly breasts jiggling up and--"

"ENOUGH!" Discord yelled. 

"But--"

"I said to shut up!" He fell silent. 

"As lovely as that sounds, 'Thena's sure to have a sufficient strategy," Discord said. "One not requiring the intervention of the Norse gods, at least."

"And if she doesn't?" came another voice.

Discord turned around. It was Hermes. He was leaning against one of the marble pillars. Since a couple of mortals had easily managed to steal his flying sandals, Hermes realized it was time to lose weight. A lot of weight. And never let any strange men at mud wrestling joints massage his feet (unless they were sexier than Adonis, or Adonis himself, which would be even better). Hermes, in his present avatar, was tall and thin, but not too muscular, and handsome in an elf-like way. He had the build of a professional runner (going around looking like a dude called Homer got old quick) and wore a white linen tunic of the finest quality, with a thick gold belt around it, along with gold wrist-bands and his sandals with the little wings on them.

"If she doesn't," Discord replied, "then we think up a better plan, and execute it behind her back, of course." 

Hermes chuckled, shaking his shoulder-length orange curls, held out of his eyes by a golden headband. 

"Of course." He paused. "Discord, you didn't stop to think that Eve might not be as easy a target as you thought, did you? You remember Xena is her mother, right?"

"I know who Xena is," she snapped. "I know all about her. Xena's like ringworm. She gets up your ass and she won't go away. That doesn't mean she's invincible."

"Just making sure." Hermes walked over to the table. "Dropping mountains, Deimos? Very clever. Your mother would be so proud." The messenger god's voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Oh, fuck my mother!" Deimos exclaimed angrily. Hermes gave him a wide smile. 

"Already did." 

Deimos glared daggers at his cousin and tried to punch him from his seat. Hermes danced away from the table. Or perhaps he fluttered away; Discord wasn't paying much attention to his feet. This information about Eve wasn't new to her. _Xena's tough to kill, Eve's tough to kill, mountain dropping was out of the question, the Twilight would come, and that would be that. Blah blah blah, BORING._

"They’re not having the meeting _now_ , are they?" Discord asked.

She marched over toward the main hall archway that led to Zeus’ old throne room, which Athena now occupied. Deimos followed her out the door.

Hermes just shook his head and watched them leave. “Kids.”

"It’s barely dawn yet and they start the meeting without me?" She fumed. "I’m gonna kill Athena, the fucking cunt."

Deimos had a much longer stride than Discord, but still struggled to keep up with the little goddess as she angrily sped down the halls of Olympus. A few minutes later, the two reached the throne room. Deimos was panting; Discord barely broke a sweat. They found Athena sitting on her throne, her hair pinned up in a messy bun, wrapped in a fluffy pink bathrobe.

Discord stifled a laugh. Deimos stared at Athena, shocked. He started to giggle, but Discord reached up and smothered it, covering his mouth with a tight iron grip.

Athena thinly smiled and looked each in the eye, daring them to make a false move. Discord, still keeping a grip on Deimos, slowly backed out of the chamber. Once in the hall, a safe distance from the clown-like doppelganger of Athena, both Discord and her cousin let themselves laugh harder than either remembered ever laughing in their long lives. They collapsed onto the floor from laughing so hard. Both gods felt like they could die, but what a pleasant way to go!

Discord could remember only one other person she had laughed with more. Glancing over at the hyena, she saw he’d stopped and had closed his eyes, relaxing against the marble wall across from her. Mentally swapping the ridiculous purple-brown lederhosen for a black safety-pin-adorned bodysuit, the ruddy tan skin for creamy pale, and the white spikes of hair for raven-black curls, Discord could have sworn she was gazing at Strife.

Discord closed her eyes and shook her head, her own black hair falling into her face. The memories retreated.

She looked up at Deimos. Nope. Just the same idiot.

"What are ya staring at?" he asked, with a grin.

Sarcastically, Discord replied, "Your handsome, chiseled features."


End file.
